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GOP to probe FBI decision on Clinton emails

Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said Hillary Clinton should be barred from receiving classified briefings in the course of the presidential campaign. (J. Scott Applewhite / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

By Erica WernerThe Associated Press

Wed., July 6, 2016

WASHINGTON—Irate that Hillary Clinton will not face criminal charges over her emails, House Republicans are summoning FBI director James Comey to Capitol Hill to answer their questions.

Comey will testify Thursday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the panel’s chairman, Jason Chaffetz of Utah, announced Wednesday. The announcement came a day after Comey rebuked Clinton for “extremely careless” behaviour in her handling of classified emails as secretary of state, but declared that “no charges are appropriate” in the case.

“There are a lot of questions that have to be answered. And so we’re going to be asking those questions,” House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters, adding that it looked like Clinton had gotten preferential treatment.

Ryan said Clinton should be barred from receiving classified briefings in the course of the campaign. He said he would be looking into whether Congress could take action to enact such a prohibition. And asked whether a special prosecutor should be appointed in the case, Ryan said he wouldn’t “foreclose any option.”

“The FBI’s recommendation is surprising and confusing,” Chaffetz said. “The fact pattern presented by director Comey makes clear secretary Clinton violated the law. Individuals who intentionally skirt the law must be held accountable.”

Democrats were furious over Chaffetz’s election-year decision to haul Comey before his committee.

“Republican after Republican praised director Comey’s impeccable record of independence right up until the moment he issued his conclusion,” said the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland. “The only emergency here is that yet another Republican conspiracy theory is slipping away.”

The House Judiciary Committee also announced that Attorney General Loretta Lynch would appear next week, as Republicans kept up their criticism of her recent brief tarmac meeting with former president Bill Clinton, which Lynch has described as unplanned and purely social. And No. 2 Senate Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, called for the FBI to make public its recent three-and-a-half-hour interview with Clinton.

Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential candidate who looks certain to face Democrat Clinton for president, complained that the system is “rigged,” and that “it was no accident that charges were not recommended against Hillary the exact same day as President Obama campaigns with her for the first time.”

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